La Familia emerged as a vigilante group in the 1990s, but only solidified a regional presence in 2004, when it merged efforts with the Gulf Cartel to muscle out the Sinaloa Cartel and Milenio Cartel – once leaders in methamphetamine production in Mexico. Los Zetas were responsible for training the

The Haqqani Network is an independent insurgent group operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Haqqanis belong to the eastern Zadran tribe. They hold major clout on both sides of the Afghan/Pakistan border and act as a “bridge” between Pakistani Taliban groups and al-Qaeda linked foreign fighters. Founder Jalaluddin Haqqani has

Jund Ansar Allah (Knights of God’s Followers) is the first known terrorist organization in the Palestinian territories to be inspired by al Qaeda. The group is reported to have been created in November of 2008. It is not likely to be a grassroots Palestinian organization, but rather an al Qaeda

This group, like most separatist groups in Baluchistan, are demanding greater political and economic rights for the ethnic Baluch people. BLUF believes that the central government in Islamabad is exploiting the mineral, oil, and gas resources in Baluchistan. BLUF is demanding a share of the wealth from the natural resources.

The Beltran Leyva Cartel is an illegal drug trafficking organization run by the Beltran Leyva family. The cartel operates along Mexico’s Pacific west coast with a base of operations in Michoacan and Guerrero states. Until the January 2008 arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva, the group was the enforcer arm of

In the late 1990s, Osiel Cardenas Guillen, former leader of the Gulf Cartel, hired 31 deserters of the Army’s elite Airborne Special Forces Groups (Gafes) as mercenaries for protection, debt collection, securing cocaine trafficking routes known as plazas, discouraging defections from the cartel, and defense from encroaching rivals, often in

Juan Nepomucen Guerra founded the Gulf Cartel, based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas in the 1930s by distributing bootlegged whiskey in the United States (US) through the southern border of Texas. Guerra continued operating small-scale smuggling of contraband through the 1970s, until his nephew Juan Garcia Abrego took over and expanded the

A splinter group of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the Animal Rights Militia (ARM) is an extremist animal rights organization that exists in name only. The name, along with “Justice Department,” is used by animal rights activists who are willing to engage in direct action that may cause harm to

Sect of Revolutionaries (SR) is a radical leftist organization that was formed in wake of the shooting death of Greek teenager Alexander Grigoropoulos by a police officer. The group seeks to influence government by targeting police officers in sporadic, organized, and executed attacks to demoralize the law enforcement community. The